The portal’s founder editor T. Sasimohan confirmed the closure decision, saying the company’s chief operating officer and president Pankaj Jain told him last week about the end of Kerala operations. Sasimohan joined as Editor of Malayalam Webdunia during 2000 November leaving his top journalistic position in Mathrubhumi, the second largest Malayalam daily.

It is understood that Webdunia Malayalam team in Trivandrum is not ready to move to Chennai. Sometime back Webdunia management team visited Trivandrum and revealed their intention to move the office to Chennai, since the team members were not ready to move the idea was kept in cold storage.

Now Webdunia Malayalam have to findout a new members to update their site. They have a small Malayalam team for their localisation work and Yahoo updates. So they will be able to do that. But with out a strong content leadership the site will be in trouble in the future. But the question is whether they are just shifting the operations to Chennai or closing down the portal?

[Remember the webdunia yahoo incident of plagiarism. – see more about that here, here and here – Content team created with entry fresh graduates and managed by people with minuscule or no experience in the area of content was the reason for that, I understand.]

Is the same thing going to happen in malayalam.webdunia.com?

Last week medianama reported that, country’s largest media house Times of India Groups is planning to lay off around five percent staff. In this lot Times Internet will be sending around 200 people out.

A speach by Rupert Murdoch entitled “The Future of Newspapers: Moving Beyond Dead Trees,” has been relayed nationally by the Australian Broadcasting Company recently. In the speach News told that News Corp’s Chairman and Chief executive told that Newspapers will survive and thrive in the 21st Century.

Internet is a new market that needs to be taken advantage of. Internet offers opportunities. But it is throwing challenges to the newspaper industry.

Day by day Audio and Video on Internet is increasing. Analysts are saying that the future of internet is in Video. Then what is the future of Text in the Online Medium?

Here is an interview with Chris Nodder, a user experience specialist for the nielsen Norman Group in which he answers questions posed by Guillermo E. Franco [Content manager of the new media unit of Casa Editorial El Tiempo and eltiempo.com]. The Interview is in Pointer online. He opines that it’s looking pretty bright in the interview – What is the Future of Text Online?

Jakob Nielsen described the basic aspects of web writing in his site more than a decade back. But 10 years is an eternity. Will the guidelines for online writing change when screen resolution improves? Will the inverted pyramid kill creative storytelling? Chris answers all doubts about the changing online medium.

John Rung, publisher of the Northwest Herald/NorthWest News Group (US) recently gave his ideas on what newspapers can do to avoid being crushed by new media: invest, partner, and simplify. Read more in Editor and Publisher.

Ohmynews.com, the Korean Citizen Journalist site is planning to increase the number of citizen Journalists to one Lakh. Currently it has got 43,000 Citizen Journalists.

Last year, Ohmynews traded 13% of its shares for $11m from Tokyo-based firm Softbank. That money will fund the upgrade, as well as the creation of a Japanese version of the site.

“I want the OhmyNews model to go around the world, so the professional-centered journalism system becomes an interactive system between professional and citizen journalists,” said founder Oh Yeon Ho. More on San Francisco Chronicle.

NEW DELHI, April 4: Mumbai’s popular city magazine, ‘Time Out’, is now out in Delhi. ‘Time Out’ is published in India by Paprika Media in association with Time Out International.

‘Time Out’ Delhi hits the newsstands on April 5. The fortnightly will be loaded with information about the city. It will map the arts, culture and entertainment scene, and provide listings, reviews, info on eating joints, shopping zones and so on. The content for the Delhi edition will be similar to that of the Mumbai edition.Agencyfaqs reports.

Exchange4media has got a two part analysis about the subject “How Newspapers are planning to use the new medium”. Many Newspapers are still viewing Internet as a non entity in the media spectrum.

I do not know whether they are not aware of what is happening in the Western World, particularly in United States of America. Statistics show that the revenue and advertisement of newspapers are coming down day by day and it is moving to Internet portals.

Yet another Google Labs product has made it into the real world; behold Google Notebook in its non-beta glory. The tool has gained the ability to “speak 17 other languages besides English,” but would-be users shouldn’t expect much in the way of additional improvements.